"There are a number of things that can be done to reduce the number of flights that must be diverted to Twin Falls from Friedman Memorial Airport during winter storms, a consultant told Airport Board members Thursday night.

But SkyWest and Horizon Airlines — the two commercial airlines serving the airport — have different approaches concerning how they’d best be served, he added.

The Airport Authority was forced to examine how to improve the present airport’s reliability after the Federal Aviation Administration backed away from studies examining the feasibility of relocating the airport south of its present site. The FAA blamed the impact the favored site would have had on sage grouse and the difficulty of attaining funding..."

HAGERMAN — Leo Ray, owner of Fish Processors of Idaho, recently received a U.S. Department of Agriculture Value-added Producer Grant, designed to help farmers advertise new products and build economies in rural communities.
“We’ll see if we can’t build a national market for Idaho caviar,” a thrilled Ray said last week.

Ray, 74, has raised fish such as rainbow trout, catfish and tilapia for about 40 years on farms in the Magic Valley. About six years ago, he began harvesting white sturgeon caviar, which is considered a “value-added” product because it brings in revenue on top of mere fish-meat sales.

The caviar side of Ray’s business has been a long time coming. To produce eggs, sturgeon must be 10 to 15 years old.

For six years, Ray has produced caviar in relatively small quantities — about 300 pounds annually. Now a much larger batch of sturgeon is at last old enough to produce the expensive, glistening, black beads. During the next one to three years, Ray plans to multiply his caviar production tenfold, to as much as 3,000 pounds annually.

Ron Paul thinks he has a chance of winning Idaho....unless all of the Mormon's in the caucus choose Romney. I am interested to know how many people in the caucus are LDS and if they choose Romney just for the fact he is LDS too. (white horse prophecy)

Baldy deemed safe from beetles
Forest Service says population has collapsed
by KATHERINE WUTZ

Bald Mountain won't be buzzed by beetle-fighting helicopters this summer, as Forest Service officials report that the Douglas fir bark beetle population has collapsed, meaning Baldy's trees are now out of extreme danger

Baldy deemed safe from beetles
Forest Service says population has collapsed
by KATHERINE WUTZ

Bald Mountain won't be buzzed by beetle-fighting helicopters this summer, as Forest Service officials report that the Douglas fir bark beetle population has collapsed, meaning Baldy's trees are now out of extreme danger

I saw that article. Remember those pics from summer before last that I posted? Well, hiking around up there you could see the little pieces of blotter paper laying around everywhere. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them like a hippie's dream come true.

WASHINGTON — More than two-thirds of state economies strengthened during the last three months of 2011, the widest advance in more than year, illustrating the spread of a recovery fueled by manufacturing and energy production.

The Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States shows energy- rich North Dakota was the top performer in the fourth quarter, compared with the previous three months, followed by West Virginia, Nevada and Oklahoma. The gauge uses data on real estate, taxes, jobs and stock prices to chart the trajectory of 50 state economies. Michigan, Illinois, Idaho, Minnesota, Ohio and Florida rounded out the top 10.

Isaac Babcock is as at home in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness as the wolves he has monitored and collared for 13 years as a biologist for the Nez Perce Tribe.

So it wasn’t a surprise for his new wife, Bjornen, when he revealed his dream honeymoon: Spending a year together in the largest wilderness area in the lower 48 states.

SEE ‘RIVER OF NO RETURN’ ON PBS OR IN MCCALL
• The film premieres nationally Wednesday. Watch it on Idaho Public Television at 7 p.m.
• In advance of the nationwide premiere, filmmakers Isaac and Bjornen Babcock invite the public to a free screening at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Idaho First Bank Conference Room in McCall.

The two will answer questions from the audience following the high-definition screening

There has been some discussion about Lewiston in the Idaho Statewide Development Thread . Nice find with the photo, I have been through Lewiston a few times and it has a very impressive tight and historic downtown core.

Edit: The Lewiston thread has (obviously) been merged with this Idaho statewide thread so that there are not so many "satellite" threads.

I haven't been to Lewiston in 35 or more years but I can assure you this is not Lewiston Idaho.

Maybe that's Lewiston, Maine? There's a Lewiston, NY but it's a little town of only about 2,000.

Lewiston is a neat town, at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers, home of Lewis and Clark State College, the only port in Idaho made possible by the Columbia and Snake rivers system, home also to paper mills. Principal city of the Lewiston-Clarkston Metro, Population 58,000. What Wikipedia won't tell you is that it's plagued with an odor worse than Nampa's and Pocatello's. If the wind is blowing that stench into town then that's all the encouragement I need to keep plugging along. I've never stopped for more than a bathroom break because of that smell!

I've always thought it would be cool to live in a border town. The kid in me still gets excited seeing a "Welcome to ___" sign at a state border. I'm sure the novelty would wear off eventually. For one reason or another, Lewiston has been rather stagnant, adding only about 1,000 residents between 2000 and 2010.

Lewiston also recently made national news when one of her fine citizens (could have been a Clarkstonian) was bit by a rattlesnake after mistaking it for a stick: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...-wash-wal-mart. The bite happened in Clarkston but the article is unclear as to the residency of the victim.

you should've seen some of the OTHER images that came up when i searched for "Lewiston, Idaho."

didn't know about the paper factory smell there, but there are a lot of towns in wisconsin that endure it, too (mosinee and rhinelander, to name a couple). i wonder if lewiston's low location traps the smell and makes it worse than what i've experienced in wisconsin?

__________________

I've been inducted by aliens.
I'm in their Hall of Fame because of all of the great ideas they found up my ass.